Neurosis
by Thethuthinnang
Summary: BtVS.House, M.D. You only have to read the lines. They're scribbly black, and everything shines.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and House, M.D. belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and David Shore.

* * *

When Dawn called London Headquarters from her hotel room in New York to tell him that Gregory House was getting fired from Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, Watchers' Council Head Rupert Giles closed his eyes, counted to ten, and told himself, _You are the Head of the Council of Watchers, now behave as such!_

"Get him," he told Dawn. "We still need a head for our Medical Branch."

"He's not fired _yet_," said Dawn, and he could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "Vogler's making his life hell, but he's still got tenure. The Board hasn't voted."

"Offer him tenure," said Rupert, even as another, larger part of him shouted, _No! Don't give him anything! Let him rot!_ "Effective immediately. Twenty percent higher salary, sets his own schedule..." _Rupert, you madman!_

Dawn raising her eyebrow was nearly as deafening as Dawn rolling her eyes. "How do you know this guy again?"

"I do not." Want _to, I do not _want _to._ "I mean, he's...his—his notoriety precedes him."

"I know," said Dawn, "which is why I ask. We put a lot of money into that Medical Branch, Giles. Too much money. And you know whoever we get as Chief of Medicine is going to have to be briefed on...everything, I guess. I did the research, and I have to ask, how many bottles of way too expensive liquor did you have to get through before you could convince yourself to put his name in as a candidate? Are you sure you want to put those kinds of resources and knowledge into his hands?"

Rupert carefully set down his cup of Earl Grey, removed his glasses, and held the bridge of his nose while he tried to resist the urge to throw his chair into the window and shout into the speaker phone,_ No, I bloody well enough don't!_

"Offer healing for his leg," he said then. "But _only_ as a last resort."

The silence of the speaker was shocking in its completeness.

"If you say so," said Dawn finally. The very neutrality of her tone was suspicious, but he was relieved enough that she was letting it go that he refused to comment on it. "But I don't have time to go to New Jersey. I'm holding interviews for security personnel all week, and most of these people are limited availability. I can't reschedule."

"Ah," he sighed wearily, leaning back and picking up his tea again. "Who else do we have in the area?"

"Robin," said Dawn immediately, "but he's busy with the mess in Cleveland. Um..."

She stopped, and Rupert knew that she was mentally working through the roster of everyone they had operating in the United States because he was doing much the same thing.

Apparently, she came up with the same result he did, because she cleared her throat.

"We're short-handed in the States right now, you know," said Dawn, "and I don't want to send a Slayer. Do you know how seriously most people take an offer of employment from a seventeen-year-old?"

"I can imagine."

"Are you really sure about this? There's always this Cox guy at Sacred Heart, he's got a good—"

"No," said Rupert. "We need the best. The best that we can possibly get. And Gregory House—" Oh, how it hurt to say. "—is the best."

Again, there was a pause, and his stomach clenched at the foreboding that filled it.

Dawn cleared her throat. "You know, there's always..."

His heart wrenched. Regret and bitterness filled his mouth with something like bile.

"I mean," said Dawn, "it's not—it's not as if Buffy's not still with us, or anything."

He said nothing.

"She's here in New York," said Dawn, "and I'm pretty sure she'll do it if I ask."

He closed his eyes.

"I know you don't like—what's going on with her right now," continued Dawn, and he almost smiled at her refusal to refer to—_that_—as anything but a situation, "because believe me, none of us do. But there isn't really anyone else close enough, and—"

Bloody hell. She was talking as if he didn't trust Buffy with a pencil, much less headhunting. A twinge of indignation made Rupert interrupt more abruptly than he meant to. "That isn't the point."

Dawn didn't speak. Rupert set his jaw.

"I'll go tomorrow," said Dawn quietly. "I can cut a few interviews."

"No," said Rupert, "no, that...that won't be necessary. Call Buffy. Please."

Again, Dawn fell silent, and Rupert tried to breathe, tried to calm, tried to take control of the anger and resentment and panic that had suddenly gripped him so thoroughly in their barbed teeth—

Dawn's voice, when it came, was a whisper through the speaker. "Giles, you're falling apart. You need to talk to Buffy. This is killing you."

"Dawn," began Rupert.

"I know," she interrupted, talking over him. "It's none of my business. But, Giles—"

"Thank you, Dawn," said Rupert, and heard, in his own voice, something of Ripper bleeding through. "I'll take that under consideration. Now, if you would call Buffy and...and arrange things."

"Fine," said Dawn flatly, and disconnected.

Rupert disconnected his own line and then slumped back in his chair, his face in his hands.

How had it come to this?

"Sir?" The knock at the door was tentative, almost fearful, and made him wonder exactly how secure that conversation had been. "Sir, the five o'clock..."

"Yes," he said tiredly, "of course."

Too old. He was getting too old. A man of his age and experience ought to know better than to behave the way he was behaving, to nurse a decades-old grudge against a miserable recluse, to deliberately repulse those close to him and that he knew meant only well.

To sit in his office, shuffling papers and feigning to work, while his heart, his foolish, foolish heart—

He thought of Gregory House. He thought about how hiring Dr. Gregory House was probably the worst mistake anyone in his position could make, about Gregory House and his arrogance, his misanthropy, his blatant disregard for rules and conduct, for the feelings and humanity of others, his brilliance, his talent, his priceless and analytical genius—

—his _obsession_ with all things unique, all things to which there could be no answer or equivalent—

He thought of Buffy. He thought about how distant he had become to her, how far they had drifted from each other. He thought about the last time he'd seen her, when he'd so mercilessly condemned her behavior without the least regard for her feelings and Buffy had so heartlessly told him _exactly_ what she thought of him and _exactly_ how he compared to—

Rupert put his face in his hands.

Buffy. Who wasn't a girl anymore, not at all, who had, somewhere, somehow, when he hadn't been looking, had turned into a woman, a woman who no longer needed him, to whom he had become superfluous in his roles of teacher and father, unwanted, a woman—

—who was incomparable, a woman before whom all other women were pointless, redundant—

And now he was sending her straight to Gregory House.

_Idiot,_ said Ripper, disdainful.

"Yes," said Rupert, and, retrieving his glasses, stood up.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and House, M.D. belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and David Shore.

* * *

"You can go in, now," said Chase. "Sit with him, if you want."

Bill Arnello looked as if he'd rather do anything but, up to and maybe including having his kneecaps broken. His dark, prematurely graying head lowered, he took a shallow, resolute breath, and then Greg's pager went off.

The interruption was so mundane yet so _jarring_ that, for a few seconds, he stood, speechless and awkward, along with both Chase and the mob lawyer.

"Ah." A glance at the pager left him with a vague feeling of both irritation and curious elation. "Sorry. Looks like my three o'clock just got here."

"Hey," said Arnello, but Greg was already walking away, toward the lobby.

He wasn't looking forward to this. Well, OK, that was sort of a lie—he was, to be honest, slightly giddy, almost gleeful. How long had it been since a medical institution had come calling, flowers in hand?

What were they, again? Something London-based? The message they'd left him on his machine had been succinct, telling him that a "Miss Summers" would be coming to see him at Princeton-Plainsboro at around three o'clock, if that would be convenient? Probably a nubile, come hither-eyed rep, smiling and batting her eyelashes for all she was worth. Maybe he could even get dinner out of her.

Most importantly, maybe this could, finally, turn out to be exactly what he needed to hold over Cuddy's head.

Nothing raised value like competition.

"House!"

Speaking of which. Cuddy was marching down the corridor after him, Wilson right behind her, strangely enough, and his expression was so alike Cuddy's that House almost smiled. How had she got away from Vogler?

"Whaaat?" He let his voice rise into a petulant whine. "Is this about Scarface? You do realize that stopping treatment also involves waiting to see if it works."

"What's going on?" Cuddy's eyes were flashing. "Who is 'Summers'?"

Greg tried to look contemplative. "A masseuse? At least, that's what I'm hoping."

"House—" She closed her eyes, opened them again, and he was struck by how tired she looked, under the make-up. "If you're already looking for another—"

"Hey," said Greg, turning and resuming his walk to the lobby. "_They_ came looking for _me_. I'm just being polite and hearing them out. It's a long flight from London."

Cuddy looked startled. "London?"

A masseuse really would be something, Greg was thinking. All curves and sleek hair, with Swedish hands and a British accent...

"House," said Wilson, somewhere between worried and exasperated, "if Vogler finds out you're considering other offers—"

They'd come to the part of the corridor that turned into the lobby. Greg stopped there, leaning back against the wall, and, ignoring the two with him, carefully extended his head around the corner.

A woman was standing in the middle of the lobby. A woman in black, waiting, casual and still in a foyer full of lab coats, nurse's scrubs, and tired, hurrying people, with nothing to indicate that she was the one he was looking for besides the fact that she was the first thing he saw, and then the only thing he could. A woman facing the other way, with her back to him and his wall.

So these were the parts of her that he saw first, that marked, then and there, the first time she came into his life.

The straight, upright line of her back. The singular curve of her waist. The light in her hair, golden as nothing was golden.

The line of her neck, from the soft, tussled hairline to the shawl collar of her jacket.

Someone was talking. Greg couldn't quite make out the words.

She wore a tight, jersey jacket, in printed material of gray and black. A matching, pencil skirt, black, made the slender length of her legs all the more eye-catching, her skin all the more honeyed. No briefcase, no bag of any kind, and her hands were loosely clasped behind her back as she stood looking at an art deco print on the wall.

So short. Relative to the front desk, she was maybe five one, five two. So small, with that impossible waist and the impractical legs.

Then she moved—slightly, to one side, to get out of the way of a nurse and an occupied wheelchair, and there was more grace in that single movement than in a thousand sonata codas.

"House!"

Greg jerked, pulling his head back behind the wall. His pulse thudded in his ears and Cuddy and Wilson were staring at him.

He cleared his throat. Tried to think of something to say.

"OK, this I have to see," said Wilson, and moved forward.

He didn't know what came over him. His arm moved of its own volition and his cane was just suddenly—out of _nowhere_—barring Wilson's way, at an angle across his knees, almost tripping him.

Wilson gaped at him, mouth hanging open. Cuddy's eyes had gone wide.

Greg clenched his jaw and tried to swallow that abrupt, instinctive _No!_

"Dr. House," someone said then, and Arnello was walking toward him down the corridor.

Just what he needed. Greg glanced at the ceiling, thinking. He'd reacted so uncontrollably, so...uncouthly. What was the matter with him? All he'd seen was her back. All he knew about her was that she was easily bored and wore Armani outfits more expensive than his apartment. Neither of these things did anything to commend her to him.

But his mouth was dry and his heart was still doing a beat displacement against his breast.

"Dr. House," said Arnello. He walked straight past Wilson and Cuddy, right into the open space of the corridor from where he had a clear view of the lobby, "you didn't say if Joey was..."

Arnello stopped, just stopped, right in the middle of his sentence. Greg looked at him, saw Arnello staring out into the corridor, eyes fixed and lips still parted.

"Oh, come _on_," said Wilson.

"Give me a break," gritted Cuddy, and pushed Greg out of the way as she went around the corner. "Men, I swear, one look at a—"

Greg didn't bother to look. He could see in his head how they would have stopped, Cuddy's mouth closing even as Wilson's came further open. He could imagine the way they looked, Cuddy, Wilson, and the mobster, all stopped dead in the open and staring.

This was a little much, though. "What's wrong?" he said, turning to come up behind them. "Like you've never seen a masseuse before."

Arnello coughed. It was such a peculiar cough that Greg would have turned to look at him, except that was when the woman saw them.

She turned, glancing over her shoulder.

There were nearly twenty other people in the lobby. Nurses, doctors, staff, patients. And he was standing behind three more people, of whom Arnello was probably the most conspicuous, in his tailored suit and tie, old-fashioned haircut and dark, Roman eyes.

But he couldn't help feeling that the first person she looked at, the first person her eyes came to rest on, was him.

She smiled, and Greg nearly stopped breathing.

The girl—no, woman, a woman, no matter how girlishly she smiled, no matter how youthful the shape of her mouth—the woman turned on a black heel and began to walk toward them.

The way she moved—like a knife through the water, clean and sharp, each movement an understated grace, like Greg had once seen a tiger moving quietly, relaxedly through the green and wet of a jungle—

"Shit," Arnello said. _"Shit."_

The vehemence—and the _fear_—behind those low, breathless expletives moved Greg to glance at Arnello. Wilson and Cuddy did so as well, though Wilson had to work hard to take his eyes off of the girl.

Arnello's face was...still. Not white, not afraid, but—

"What?" said Wilson.

Arnello turned his face toward Greg, but not his eyes. "How do you know her? How do you _fucking_ know her?"

Greg was so surprised he couldn't say anything.

"What is it?" said Cuddy, her Byzantine glare narrowing with suspicion.

"That—" Arnello gestured with his chin, with his eyes. "_That_ is Nikolai fucking Luzhin's girlfriend!"

Greg...paused. The name wasn't a familiar one.

The woman was halfway to them, now, and getting closer, her eyes (green, he saw, dark and green and fearless) inquisitive when she turned them on Arnello.

Arnello answered the questions Greg hadn't asked, his whisper almost violent. "Luzhin! As in Russian mob! As in Captain fucking Luzhin of the fucking London _vory_!"

Cuddy's throat worked. Wilson's pupils dilated.

The woman stood in front of them. From her hair, from her clothes, drifted a faint, subtle perfume that reminded Greg, inexplicably, of funeral flowers.

"Dr. House?" she said.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and House, M.D. belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and David Shore.

Warning: all places and names not directly canon to House, M.D. are things I picked at random. Any resemblances to real places or people are entirely coincidental. Also, some really amateur Italian.

Note: 21st reviewer gets to request a fic! If they want it, I mean. If they don't, we can...just move on with our lives, I guess.

* * *

Bill Arnello—Billy to _nobody_, not even his brother—made it his business to know everyone. That was why he was Joey's right hand man. It didn't matter if they were grifters at the park or arms dealers from the former Eastern Bloc. If they did any sort of business, legit or not, in the Tri-State Region, whether gambling, drugs, prostitution, or even some of the more distasteful enterprises, he knew who, where, and how.

So he knew exactly who Anoushka was.

He knew about her before she ever stepped foot in New York, ten months earlier. He knew about her before that night at La Nonna, when he'd looked up from a plate of _riccota gnocchi_ to find his brother and a capo named Benito staring at the door and turned, only to get a glimpse of a narrow, arching shoulder and back as she left. He knew about her before July, back when there'd been that big mess in East Harlem where some consigliere from the family got a finger cut off by some high ranking _vor_ for touching her hair.

He knew what she looked like. (A Botticelli Madonna come to life, all holy eyes and untouchable face, the sort of girl who made even a guy like Joey stop and turn to stare after her when she walked by.) He knew where she lived. (In a high class flat in London, in a restored townhouse in New York when she was there.) He knew what she did. (Nothing in particular, really, not in London or in New York, apparently living off of some sort of inheritance or something.)

He even knew, because of one, particular night in front of the Carlyle when he'd been following Joey into the car and heard, from behind them, from a cab that had just pulled up, a certain, low, restrained voice that made him bang his head on the roof of the car as he tried to swing around, what she sounded like when she laughed.

And he also knew, because it was impossible not to know, _exactly_ who she belonged to.

"Dr. House?" said Anoushka. "I'm Summers, your three o'clock."

Summers. Bill had known she wasn't Russian. That look, that speech, it was All-American white bread. But all anyone ever called her was Annoushka, because that was what Luzhin called her, and to find out now that her name was Summers made his hands, in a strange, unfamiliar gesture, clench into fists.

"Well, _finally_," said House. "These kinks aren't going to work themselves out, you know."

Bill inhaled sharply, abruptly.

Anoushka only smiled, a glimpse of white teeth.

"Ms. Summers," said the other woman, the administrator or something. "I'm Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine. I didn't catch the hospital you represent...?"

"That's because I don't," said Anoushka, in a tempered, polite tone, and glanced at House.

House looked at Anoushka, at Cuddy, at the other doctor standing beside him with an expectant face, and then said, "My office is _this_ way."

He swung around on the cane, ignoring the outraged expressions on Cuddy and the other doctor, and Anoushka moved to follow him, the smile she gave the others gracious but implacable, unquestionable.

Bill wasn't going to say anything. She didn't know him from Adam, and he had to remember that he was being discreet, that he didn't want anyone from any of the families to figure out where Joey was, that he had no business talking to, or even standing in the same room as, Nikolai Luzhin's girlfriend—

Only she paused, as she passed him, paused and glanced, quietly, inquiringly, at him.

"Puttanesca's," she said, looking him in the eye. "You were with your brother, and it was your mother's birthday."

He should have said something. That was his cue, he recognized, except he couldn't think of anything at all except that _she remembered_, they were standing in a Jersey teaching hospital nearly six months after the fact and she _remembered_, and he stood there staring at her until she smiled again, a smaller, softer curve of the corner of her mouth, and left with House.

Cuddy was talking, but he didn't care. Bill walked away, toward his brother's room, where he was supposed to he didn't know _what_, sit in a corner and jerk off and wait for Joey who might be a fag to wake up or—

Walked away, trying to think about Joey and what he was going to do and how was he going to handle the fact that Joey, his brother Joey, wanted to go into Witness Protection so he could finally go and be the _finocchio_ he'd apparently always wanted to be and what in Holy Mary's name was he supposed to tell Mamma about what her firstborn was doing—

Walked away, and couldn't think about _anything_ except that night, nearly six months ago, when Joey had introduced himself to the girl with the green eyes sitting at the next table with all the Russians, when Joey had danced with her to something slow while he watched and Mamma had told him that she prayed every night that one of her boys would bring home a girl like _that_ _exactly_, one of these days, _a Dio piacendo_—

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. A fucking teaching hospital in Jersey!

To think he'd been so unnerved that night at Puttanesca's, taking Joey by the shoulder and asking him what the _fuck_ he was thinking, whispering in Anoushka's ear like that in front of everybody and their grandmother—and Mamma, in front of Mamma!—

Bill stood by the glass wall of his brother's hospital room and looked off into nothing.

Thirty minutes, maybe forty, later, Anoushka came to stand next to him.

"Dr. House said he was going to be all right," she said, as if they were in the middle of a conversation, had been talking for hours and hours.

"It's what I hear," said Bill, calmly, collectedly, because he'd had an hour to prepare.

He looked at her, and she was already looking at him.

Those eyes. It was because of those eyes that he guessed her to be twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven, rather than the twenty-three her face suggested.

"Arnello," he said, "Bill Arnello."

"Joey told me," she said, and smiled again, that understated smile that made him want, more than anything, to see more of it, the young, girlish smile to those womanly eyes. "I guess you know who I am."

"Joey told me," he said, and wasn't quite as shocked as he should have been to hear his voice so light, so playfully teasing.

She laughed, the same laugh as from the cab all that time back, a laugh like a Mass being sung in all its glory and grace, and his heart throbbed in his chest.

That was how Anoushka was there to see Joey wake up. How she was there to sit next to him while they talked to Joey, the perfume of her hair and skin intoxicating the air, and how she went with him in the car, later, when Joey talked him into driving back into New York to get a change of clothes and give Anoushka a ride while he was at it.

And Bill decided that maybe, though he would never admit it out loud to anyone, Joey wasn't the only one who knew a thing or two about wanting something you couldn't have.


End file.
